Pasrur

September 30, 2000

In keeping with the financial mismanagement of the 50 years plus of this nation’s existence, the economic numbers simply do not add up. To be fair to the military regime, the massive siphoning off of public sector funds into private sinecures has been contained at the macro-level while the quantum of leakage at the micro-level seems to go on unabated has even increased because of the “risks” of being “nabbed”. Pakistan is in a Catch-22 situation of obtaining more and more loans to make repayments, without having the means to avoid further slide into an ominous debt trap. The quicksand is of our own making, with no or little help from the obdurate policies of world financial institutions and the lack of a spine among our financial negotiators. Our Finance Ministry has been grovelling before the IMF both in public and private for measly amounts which the IMF dangles before us but does not disburse. The flight of capital has assumed alarming proportions, a mass migration of talent and expertise going to Canada, if this is not reversed no entrepreneurial potential will be left in the country. Thankfully, our Finance Minister is still smiling in the face of eminent financial apocalypse, maybe he knows something we don’t.

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About Ikram Sehgal

In 1971, Ikram Sehgal was taken prisoner of war in East Pakistan and successfully escaped from Indian Authorities. Joined 44 Punjab, he was given a battlefield promotion to Major, left the Army in 1974. He worked as a commercial pilot before starting his own business in 1977. A regular columnist in the print media since 1987, he graduated to his own TV Talk Show. He is a member of World Economic Forum (WEF), International Organization for Migration (IOM) & the Chairman of Pathfinder G4S Pakistan.
Educated at Lawrence College, Murari Chand College, Notre Dame College & the Pakistan Military Academy. Commissioned in 1965.